Conspirator

“No, not at all. He’s a nice kid.”

“He’s a nice kid,” Bren agreed. As if that adequately summed up the heir to the aishidi’tat. “I’ll pick him up at the train station after lunch, get him settled in—he’ll be in the bedroom next to mine. I’ll manage the noise level.”

“Is the dowager coming, too?”

“No. She’ssupposed to be on her way to the East. Which is good, because we’re ru

“I don’t mind,” Toby said with a curiously fervent tone. “Not at all.”

Toby had kids. Or he had had kids, before the divorce, Bren thought. Damn, he hadn’t at all meant to hit that nerve: he hadn’t sensed, in fact, that it was quite that live a nerve with Toby. But he had certainly hit it, Barb wasn’t looking happy, either, and it was just time to change the subject.

“Well, I’ll do my local business, we’ll let the youngsters explore the grounds and maybe go down to the village that day if you don’t mind being escort. I’m having the staff go over my boat today, be sure it’s in good order for a fishing run.”

“Our boat is certainly available,” Toby said.

“Thank you for that. It can certainly be our fallback if they find anything amiss with mine. So we’ll have an early lunch and you can do whatever you like and wait for us to get back from the train station—not a long trip at all, if the train’s ru

“Oh, well,” Barb said, “just sitting still is good.”

“So what isthe news from the Island?” Bren asked, for a complete change of subject. “Gossip is welcome.”

“Oh, not so much,” Toby said, and then proceded to fill him in on two complex legislative scandals and the failure of a large corporation that had profited and ballooned mostly on the anticipation of the Crescent Island settlement actually working: it hadn’t. Buildings stood vacant down there.

And the Human Heritage Party wasn’t dead, it seemed, and had gotten all stirred up about the action of the station in dropping surveillance packets all over the map—what amounted to robotic surveillance, and communications outposts. They’d been sure that was an atevi plot, engineered by atevi on the station—that would have been Lord Geigi.

In point of fact, Lord Geigi had helped target the drops on the mainland, but the plan had been to provide surveillance and communication forforces loyal to Tabini duing the uprising—a plan that hadn’t turned out to be needed, but it had created controversy on both sides of the straits.

And meanwhile, indeed, as Toby had told him, cell phones had become the rage on Mospheira. Communications had improved. Privacyc well, in Toby’s view, he liked being out of range of phone calls.

“About forty miles off the coast is good,” Toby said.

“The wireless phone issue has become a problem here,” Bren said, “and certain concerns think it might be a good idea. I don’t. I’m preparing an opposition to it. Which is what I’m doing in my spare time on this vacation. Stopping cell phones.”

“I don’t mind them,” Barb ventured to say, “if we’re out shopping.”

“Finding one another is a convenience,” Toby said.

“And the ordinary ateva doesn’t have a bodyguard,” Bren said, “but he doesn’t go about alone, either—people are just not inclined to split up on an outing. It’s just the way of things.”

“So what areBanichi and Jago up to?” Toby asked.

“ Fishing, I hope. They so rarely get the chance to relax and enjoy themselves. Tano and Algini, too. They might even go shopping in the village—it’s one thing I don’tdo. And if they have done that—I may have to violate my own position on cell phones and use the com to track them down. They won’t forgive me if I go off cross-country without them.”

“Shopping?” Barb asked. But a light rap came at the door. Ramaso entered, a

So that was their morning. They actually had an enjoyable lunch. Barb did nothing outrageous, he and Toby and Barb talked about good fishing grounds just off the peninsula, and Toby and Barb proposed to go down to their boat and do some housekeeping in the case the young lord wanted to see their boat again, too—a good bet, that was.

Anything that took them out of the way of staff, Bren thought unworthily, but he was relieved to be relatively sure they’d be busy for a few hours.

But he had to phone down the hill to tell Banichi and Jago the news—and interrupt their small moment of leisure.

“By freight!” was Banichi’s only, somewhat exasperated remark when they all four arrived in the study. Jago said nothing. Nor did Tano and Algini. The four of them went outside the door, probably to consult staff, while Bren, with the servants’ help, dressed for an informal reception.

Not a reception at the station platform, on Banichi’s advice on the event, but just a little short of itc assuming the enterprising youngsters had made their co

Chapter 6

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They waited in the estate bus, the three of them, on the grassy side of the dirt road just out of sight of the station, which was on the other side of the hill. It was a pleasant place to wait: sea grass, dune-like little hills, a view of the bayc the bus afforded them a pleasant place to sit, given the afternoon air was a bit nippy. Last night’s storm had long since swept on eastward, and the sky was sparkling blue with a few straggling clouds. Looking out the back window of the bus, Bren watched those clouds float eastward, chasing their larger, angrier brothers. Another, larger front was due in. He hoped it wouldn’t scotch their plans. He was keeping an eye to the weather reports—kept an eye to the west, from this vantage, and still saw no cloud.

They’d dropped Tano and Algini atthe station. But Tano and Algini wouldn’t intercept the young scoundrels there, just tail them and be sure nobody else met the trainc and also ensure that the train didn’t get out of the station without dropping said young scoundrels.

Sure enough, Banichi reported a confirming signal from Tano, and in due time the youngsters crested the hilltop, marching right along as if they owned the countryside. Their jaunty step slowed a bit as they faced the unexpected bus.

Good. They were thinking self-defensively. But they were a little obvious, in mid-road, and stopping like that, as if they didn’tbelong here.

Bren got up, walked forward in the bus, slightly downhill; Jago got up ahead of him and went down the steps first, stepping down to the outside. Bren took hold of the rail and himself descended the tall steps, jumping down to Jago’s steadying hand. Banichi meanwhile took over the driver’s seat, just a precaution, always, in case of a quick getaway.

No need of that, however. Bren walked along the pebbled dirt as far as the tail of the bus, Jago staying with him. He waited there so their three visitors now could plainly see who was waiting for them—and add up for themselves the fact that their coming had been a